


a circumstance in your naked dreams

by crownedcarl



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:11:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was always where it was going to end up, he supposed, since the moment he caught the man on camera; Q with his legs wrapped around Bond's waist, fucking in the middle of his trashed apartment. This kind of obsession was really inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a circumstance in your naked dreams

**Author's Note:**

> title from obsession by animotion.
> 
> au in which q is a freelance hacker and bond still works for MI6. this fic contains an oc pls don't hate her i Tried

Tuesday, and the rain is falling steadily; the sky has taken on a shade of grey that is mostly associated with the hollow-faced orphans the last war left behind. There is a cup of tea exuding steam on the sleek metal desk that occupies the middle of the room.

He does prefer his privacy, but he supposes it can't be helped. This organization relies on him, but, he reflects, it isn't odd that he's not trusted. After all, he has built it up to the near empire it has become – he can easily tear it down and disappear. Adjusting his glasses, he glances at the door. Two burly guards stand on either side of it, as per usual.

He begins to type. The click of the keys beneath his fingertips is out of rhythm with the soft patter of the rain; it creates a sound that goes straight to the pulsing of his temples, intensifying the headache that never seems to go away, especially when it rains. He's glad he got here before it really started coming down.

How easily unnerved the guards are, he thinks as he straightens up in order to sip his tea. They shift, ready to grab him if he were to show any interest in leaving the computer. Idiots. He's here of his own volition, isn't he? He has no reason to leave.

But then again, he has very little reason to stay.

The silence blankets him as he works; he is delving deep, into files only a select few government officials are meant to know even exist. It's not easy to bypass their admittedly impressive security, but he is and always has been the best. He breaks through, eventually and there it is – every dirty little secret laid bare to his eyes. The anthrax in 2005, caused by her majesty's beloved secret service. The drug scandal two years back, the couple murdered in their home last January for knowing too much – he has access to it all. He has worked towards this for days and there is an open arrogance in his smile that's tinged with pride.

What to do with it, now, he muses, tapping his fingers on the desk. His tea has cooled.

It's all terribly dull, he reflects. The warehouses are getting tedious to dwell in and the constant paranoid supervision agitates him more than it unnerves him. He has no protest about his salary, if one might call it that; even if they were to leave him without a penny, he has access to their accounts. He can take what he likes.

Then again, the work has become rather boring. He endures typical drug-cartel schemes; smuggle it out and sell it at an increased price. The demand is high and they are looking to provide. By gaining access to the secrets privy only to the highest-ranking government officials, they could make a fortune selling them, thus further enabling themselves in the business.

These are not Q's motives.

A lock of hair tumbles from his forehead to hang in front of his eyes. He pushes it back up and the brush of his fingers against the bridge of his nose coincides with the wail of alarms that suddenly goes off.

This – this is why he does it.

His monitor is divided into five squares – four angles that look out towards the winding hallways of the compound and the middle one provides a view of the grounds outside. Among the weeds and rusted bicycles, there is a man in a suit.

Interesting. The elegant lines of the fabric suggest money and status, but there is nothing sophisticated about the punch he delivers to the first lackey to approach him. The strike to the back of his neck suggests that he's trained in the martial arts. Good. Q can use this to find out more about him, assuming he lives.

The man takes down two more (highly trained - impressive) guards within the next few minutes. Q bites back a smile.

All the boredom seems to have led up to this. He resumes typing. The two guards by the door position themselves in more advantageous stances and this, Q figures, is his only window of opportunity.

He never cared for any of them. Greedy merchants, profiting from others' similar desires. He is in this for the elegance of efficiency and the reward in six-digit checks – rare, but a thrill in themselves. There is a gun concealed within a hidden compartment in his desk. Again, he is hit with a sudden distaste for their stupidity and surprising naivete. If you're in this business long enough, you might want to learn a thing or two about trust.

The weight is perfect in his hand. Of course it is; he shouldn't be surprised. It's of his own making, designed to respond only to the warm press of his palm. He's never shared this with the cartel. They wouldn't have known what to do with it.

He shoots the guards with deadly precision and watches as they drop with synchronised thuds. In the upper left corner of his screen, the man in the well-tailored suit scouts out the hallway in the level below.

There are speakers installed throughout the compound. Q has access to them all.

“I wouldn't bother advancing,” he says. His voice carries, tinny and drily amused, down the corridors. The man pauses, cocking his head towards the black speaker some feet behind him. 

Whatever the man might reply, Q doesn't hear it. One-way communication is all he has.

He folds whatever papers that can be folded and packs them away in his backpack. There is a fire escape he's acquainted himself with that will lead him down to the parking lot until he can get a mile or so north, where one of the numerous cars under one of his false names is waiting. Nobody has ever been able to keep him in one place for long and it is time for him to disappear.

The man in the suit moves forward despite his warning. Q chuckles.

He rigs the explosives meticulously around the room and makes sure the blast radius will exceed thirty feet. Let the man prove that the arrogance in his stance is warranted. If he survives, Q will be impressed.

The fire escape is rusted and slick with rain, but Q doesn't waste his time thinking about that. He brings only his laptop in its case, the backpack, his gun, and the confidential files he took the time to print out. His time may not be unlimited, but all his work would have been wasted if he didn't get the proof on paper.

This, he thinks, when he unlocks the car-door to the sound of his explosion – this is his way to bring it all down. He has no desire to. It's the possibility that makes him continue; he has the fate of Britain neatly folded in his inner coat-pocket and the power is not consuming, as they say. It's a sharp twist of pleasure in his stomach as he settles in and glances out the window.

A distinctive, charred figure leaps off the warehouse's rooftop. Q's lips twitch.

Well, then.

\--

Bond. The name is common enough. He has had weeks to research the man, but he needed only days (hours, in fact, but he allowed himself the leisure) to dig up all the information there is about him. The photo on his passport – the only one with his real name, rarely used – is as ordinary as they go. Unsmiling and dour. Unflattering, as a whole.

The eyes, however. Q, for all his wit, has no words to describe the vibrant blue. So. This Bond is not only stupid enough to get into buildings guarded by dozens of heavily-muscled minions, but clever enough to get both in and out relatively unscathed and he has eyes like a storm.

This is more fun than Q had initially anticipated.

He tilts his screen down when the waitress walks by, lest she see the information he's pulled up on the ubiquitous Mr. Bond.

Last week, it had been Argentine. Explosions do seem to follow the man and his most recent stunt – Norway – left quite a dent in the parking lot of an internationally renowned hotel. (That one, he couldn't help laughing at – only a certain caliber of man would have the audacity to blow up the prime minister's car right in front of him.)

James Bond. Q leans back and shuts his laptop. The waitress refills his cup of coffee, a touch too sweet for his taste. He thanks her and drinks it anyway.

It has begun to snow. Winter is approaching rapidly. A knitted scarf is draped across the back of his chair and his coat is resting above it. His gloves lie on the table, leather against wood, the old against the new.

He hasn't taken up any offers for a job, lately. He has more than enough money to get by. 

There is an electronics store on the other side of the street that sells cameras. They're small enough to be concealed with ease.

Later, he buys five. He improves them by breaking them down to their basics and building them up again, this time smaller and more elegant. The equipment is refined. He spends hours perfecting them.

Q doesn't bother with bugs. He reads body language better than he interprets the spoken word and he interprets it well.

He installs them when the frost begins to set in. Bond has a flat that's just short of trashy and Q takes his time exploring it. He pulled MI6 mission files a few days earlier; the agent is stationed in Algeria for quite some time and will hardly suspect the cameras after Q plants evidence of a simple robbery. He takes nothing too fancy; a Swiss watch, the stereo, and the hefty bundle of fifty-pound bills he finds stashed behind a sofa cushion.

He isn't greedy, but it wouldn't make sense not to take it. He stuffs it down his own pocket and surveys his work.

For good measure, he knocks over a lamp and leaves obvious scrapes against the outside lock.

(His method of breaking in included making his own key, which he disposes of in the bushes outside. He's almost certain he won't be needing it again.)

Bond returns thirty-three hours later with fine dust in his hair.

The cameras, as expected, go unnoticed.

\--

Q avoids employment diligently for little less than a month. The world is, for once, silent. No political scandals have arisen, there are no wars brewing that haven't already been going on for years and no celebrities have managed to get themselves landed in jail. It's a tedium, droning and dull. He thinks he might go out of his mind if nobody attempts to at least assassinate a president soon.

He might even do it himself, if provided with adequate incentive.

His laptop is open. The screens are undisturbed; Bond is in bed.

A sigh divides the steam rising from his cup. More tedium.

Last night, he had gotten in late. There had been things to take care off. Equipment was bought, false trails were laid, and a pretty girl with too much lipstick ended up with one of Q's individualized bullets in her gut.

Her name was Amanda and she had shared Bond's bed last week.

Remorse – it's not something Q is at all familiar with. Regret, he understands. Even guilt; the operations he oversaw that went wrong still sit like lead weights in his stomach. He always returns to the thought of that he could have done better. Thousands of dollars were wasted, but he's never been particularly concerned about the lives lost. He doesn't know remorse and he has no intention to learn now.

Amanda, the young thing, will live. He has no need for remorse.

He puts his mug down. The gentle scuff of porcelain on wood is louder than his breathing.

Soon enough, Bond wakes. It is quite the spectacle – not a particularly elegant one, but one nonetheless. He rises like others might emerge; taking up space as he stretches, muscled limbs bathed in the harsh morning light.

Q pauses with his fingers on his keyboard. He considers breaking the feed. It's not all that interesting a sight, but then Bond stands. He is a marvel of skin and scars, a patchwork-man. His mouth stretches on a groan that Q inexplicably wishes he could hear. His fingers press down. 

He zooms.

His sharp exhale is unwarranted. Bond does, after all, do no more than stretch further, muscle taut beneath the skin. There are better looking men in the world. Q has been with some of them.

He presses his fingertips to the screen, to the places where Bond's body is arched and his limbs extended. Phantom heat, sharp and sudden, stirs in his stomach.

Desire, maybe. Certainly not interest.

He is long past that.

Maybe he's mistaken – he rarely is – but Bond turns, stiff despite his stretching, and casts a look to the corner where the camera is. Well. One out of the five.

He's off by several feet, and Q smiles – softly, but not fondly, with arrogant amusement rather than the exasperated affection he sometimes sees in pairs of lovers. Waste of time, he believes.

He closes his laptop. He has better things to do.

\--

His passport says Anthony Barker, but this is not his name. Among the countless aliases he uses, this is not his favourite. Jonathan Quincy is. He uses the name with a touch of irony at the utter ridiculousness of a name that posh, amusement smudging his smile into something warm and wide. Q travels to the most remote of places with only his laptop and his gun, with Christmas being just around the corner.

It's boring. He sits on the plane. The purpose of a plane ride, he realizes, is to get to where you want to be. Nobody wants to be on the plane. And nobody wants to be where they used to be.

There are people here and there will be people there too. Too many of them and there's nothing of value in the concrete jungles they have built. Even the technology holds no importance – Q appreciates it for the efficiency, not the sentiment. It's the same old charade in places both old and new and there is nothing left to be discovered.

The stewardess offers him a bag of peanuts. He declines. He flies in economy only to divert attention. The clouds are grey outside the small, rounded window.

“Business?” the stewardess asks. “Pleasure,” Q responds and accepts the plastic-wrapped peanuts she insistently pushes at him.

Pleasure. He has never been one to fall prey to it; the click of keys beneath his fingers, the thud of bodies against the floor, the rush of delight when he betrays with ease – that is pleasure. The times with women and men moving against him, with him, skin against skin - that is a symphony he sometimes longs for and while that is certainly pleasure, but one that leaves him too vulnerable to be experienced often. It is unnecessary.

He is flying somewhere remote because James Bond is challenging this notion.

\--

He returns for Easter. He has bulked up. There is stubble where he was smooth-skinned, before and he brings two suitcases along with the single bag he carries his laptop in. His gun is, as always, skilfully concealed within another object.

He used to sweat before entering airport security, back when he was young and foolish and unbearably naive. These days, he carries his weapons practically out in the open on a dare.

Q is entitled to his arrogance. He has earned the right to consider himself above others because they are human. He is brilliant. He is, above all things, bored.

His flat is unchanged. His deep blue tie lies draped over the back of the sofa, his favourite cup patterned with green leaves is still gathering dust on the table in the living room. The curtains are pulled shut. A smell from his kitchen alerts him to the fact that yes, cheese doesn't hold for more than a few weeks and the steady drip-drop makes him sigh mournfully for the milk he'd forgotten on the counter.

He drops his things in the hallway. He places his laptop on the living-room table, the insistent stench of abandoned dishes permeating throughout the flat. Sometimes, he disgusts himself. He's tempted to bring up the live feed, but he resists his own curiosity. A shower will be his priority and then the act of cleansing his living quarters. He remembers leaving a half-eaten bowl of broth in the bedroom and it's bound to have gone bad. The weather is beautiful outside.

Q owns no plants and he has no pets. He eats buttered bread and leaves the kitchen before he feels the need to retch from the odor, booting his computer up.

After a moment, he decides on getting into his pajamas. He is not, after all, above the simple comforts in life.

Half an hour passes. He looks through his files aimlessly, searching for something he might have missed. Maybe something that could catch his interest. Nothing does.

He has stalled long enough. He clicks up the live feed.

My, my, he thinks. So Bond is not indestructible. There is blood on the beige carpet that lines the hallway in the lower left square. Copious amounts of it, in fact. A crease forms between his eyebrows.

After a moment, he realizes that the blood is not a vibrant, deep red, not rich with life. It's the colour of rust. Old, and permanently sunken into the carpet. A shame. It looks expensive and if not, at least hard to clean.

The morning stretches into afternoon. Q sits patiently with YouTube videos in the background and waits for the shape huddled beneath the duvet in the bedroom to emerge, but Bond remains still. Assuming he was injured in the months that Q spent away, he's had ample time to recover - so why is the carpet still stained, Bond still curled beneath his covers?

He brews himself a pot of tea. The floor is cold, so he returns to the sofa, cross-legged and frowning at the screen in his pajamas. Irritating. Why is nothing happening?

A copy of the Call of the Wild presents itself as a suitable distraction. He thumbs through it; while he's not overly fond of old literature, the novel strikes a chord. Q reads only the parts that he remembers the most vividly, yet he looks at the clock when he's done and an hour has passed.

The bed is empty. Bond is on his feet and preparing a late lunch, the line of his shoulders relaxed. Annoyance stirs in Q. Fretting is not something he does – not what he did, either – but it's wholly unfair for Bond to raise something similar to worry when he's evidently fine.

Yet, there is relief. Q decides not to question it.

Bond is, more interestingly, shirtless. There are no new scars that Q can pick out and he's not the gauze-covered wreck that Q was expecting. He seems fine and it unnerves Q. If it turns out the man just had a massive nosebleed, he might just hack his bank account and donate all his funds to charity out of pure spite.

Reasonably, it could be someone else's blood. He settles on that, and then keeps the screen in his line of sight while he plays the most mind-numbing and violent game he has on his PS2.

By the end of the night, his eyes are sore and his worry diminished. His cameras show an empty flat. Bond must have left while Q was muttering curses at the screen and throwing the controller a couple of times in dismay, but this time, he's unconcerned.

He sleeps on the couch and it is not the best slumber he has ever experienced. Bond isn't quite important enough to ease the lines of tension in Q's body, or the furrow between his eyebrows.

(He is, however, of enough importance that when Q doesn't see him in the flat for a few days, he deems it safe to send a crew over to clean the carpet, since Bond obviously won't take care of it himself and the view is, frankly, an eyesore.

Bond's incomprehension is worth the hefty bill.)

\--

Q fancies himself a clever man. If he didn't, he wouldn't possess the confidence and complete trust in his own abilities that have led him to where he is today. Outwardly, it doesn't seem like much. A flat that reeks of week-old food that he is still stalling the cleaning of, cars of different makes and models that sit around the country, ready for his usage. Nothing more is jotted down in the books, and his money is spread around wisely.

It's not having it all, but it covers all that he needs.

His favourite cafe offers a stunning view of the Thames. London, grey and magnificent, even in winter, stretches before him for miles. His coffee, this time, is exquisite. He will leave the waitress a tip that will allow her to replace both her scuffed running shoes and the t-shirt that's stained black at the hem. Today, he is waiting for a contact to join him. There's something brewing in the world of gun smugglers and Q has long been known as being the best. They want him.

His hands are dry, knuckles cracking from the cold. His hair has taken to plastering itself along the line of his neck, growing longer without any effort on his part to cut it. His smiles come more easily; he offers one to the woman that struggles past with a bag that bulges from the contents within, murmuring an apology when it gets stuck on the jut of his elbow.

An ordinary day to any onlooker. He supposes that's the position he appreciates the most; being able to observe without partaking, being able to understand without questioning. It's neat and easy and although he sometimes goes out of his mind from how dull it is, he still enjoys the occasional bout of simply watching the world go by.

The door to the cafe opens and a man with a teenager in tow walk in, the cold air brought in with them. Someone mutters their annoyance, and Q asks for a refill on his coffee. His laptop remains at home, so he watches the street through the glass of the window, people passing by in flashes of red or yellow or green as washed-out blots as the rain comes down.

Again, the door opens with a jingle and the man behind the counter seems to hold back a sigh as more rain escapes inside. The newcomer glances around, for show, as if searching, although she's well aware of where Q is sitting. He always chooses this seat if it's available.

She's not what he would consider pretty, but Q thinks he might have loved her. “Jonathan,” she greets, in on the joke. “Lucy,” he mirrors and then his smile stretches soft and he wonders why he's never noticed how utterly enthralling she is. Not in her looks – certainly not in her personality, with the switches from delighted to bitter so rapid that it's startling. It's her mannerisms, her way of speech, the way short golden hair curls around her ear, wet and darkened.

He has always admired her.

“You look healthy,” she remarks. She sits down without ceremony, dark brows rising, imploring. “How come?”

“How about we skip straight to business?”

She responds with the sharp smile she reserves for the people who have seen her naked. “You never liked foreplay, I keep forgetting. My colleagues have heard of you. Rumour has it you can code guns in a way that might be beneficial to us.”

What she's not saying is _I can't believe you kept this from me_.

He inclines his head, vague. “I might. What's the offer?”

Lucy shrugs, equally vague. Unless she knows he really can, she won't give up the sum and give him the advantage. He knows who she works for, he knows their bank accounts and has an estimated knowledge of the numbers in them. If she tells him, she gives him the upper hand and Lucy has never liked that.

He rests his elbows on the table. “Say I can, yes? Suppose I do provide you with them – how many do you want and how do I know you won't simply use it against me and England?”

“Would I lie?” she asks.

“You always do,” he says mildly.

“Then I'm not a very good liar,” she sighs, eyes glinting. “Say we want it for the sake of simply preparing ourselves better against our rivals. Say we don't. Does it matter what we want it for when we're paying you more than we ought to?”

“Give me a number,” Q says, “And I might consider it.”

“Coffee, first,” Lucy says. She plucks his cup out of his saucer, taking a sip as she runs her thumb along the rim. “You're more ruthless than before. Did I do that to you?”

He fixes her with a look that is sharp and cold and she merely smiles. She pulls a slip of paper from her coat pocket and slides it to him across the tabletop. He checks the numbers and nods.

“Beautiful,” Lucy says, as if they're in agreement. “I'll send you the location we want you at later tonight and the people you'll expect to see. I'll see you then.”

No, Q is not Jonathan Quincy, but sometimes he wishes that he were for the sake of not knowing this woman.

\--

Sometimes the quiet evokes thoughts Q would rather not dwell on.

Anna. Margaret. Sebastian. Lucy. Edward. Jeanne. Lucy. Eve. Jack. Lucy. Bond.

Anna was a redhead that Q met when he was seventeen. She was bright. She laughed loudly and loved passionately and being with her was an adventure. She loved him fiercely and he was fond of her in ways he has yet to experience again. It ended after five months. Margaret was the girl he attended university with, a short, plump girl with an affinity for poetry. He lost his virginity and his love for the rain to her.

Sebastian. Q remembers him vividly. How he had been strong, a man that demanded everything and gave just as much back. They had met in Belgium and Q had learned from him that his back really could arch just so, that pleasure could exceed the heat in his belly and extend to his toes, curling them with the force of it.

It didn't last long. It had been fast-paced and fleeting and Q put a bullet through his skull when he discovered that he'd been embezzling money from his private funds.

Q rarely thinks back on Lucy. There isn't much he likes to think about. She was beautiful with her brittle bones, once and now she is nothing but ugly. He recalls the sex before her – either it evoked nothing but awkward, tense exhales of breath and stuttered apologies, or it burned like a supernova in his very core, urging him on and making his breath come fast and damp. With her, it was hardly a novelty. He won't think any further on the matter. He may have loved her, but he will stand by his bitterness until one of them has died.

He didn't love Edward. He was a professor attending a seminar in Germany that was in no way involved with the trade that Q specializes in. He was married, had two children. Q supposes that he seduced him, although he didn't try very hard. He played the angle of his own need, made the man feel like he was giving him something he couldn't possibly live without. It ended peacefully, with Edward back with his family and Q no worse for wear.

Jeanne is a touchy subject. She was older, but not necessarily wiser and she never spared him a kind word. She had felt along the rigid line of his spine when he laid on his side in bed, murmuring how he was nowhere near a man. There had been more pleasure in strangling the life out of her than fucking her, the repetition of _stronger than you think_ running through his head.

Lucy again. He doesn't go there. Eve worked in a flower shop and handed him a lily when he had asked for ten roses, saying that love wasn't always about the most expensive products you could get your hands on. Her, he had loved. She broke it off when it had become apparent he would be spending more time with his computer or abroad than with her.

The one that means the most would be Jack, but there was no love. Jack approached him in a bar and bought him a drink and although it was a one-night stand, it seemed like one that worked on a deeper level. Hands in his hair, his own on the sharp hipbones of the other and then the sensation of being engulfed – it had been something more than sex. Then, Lucy for the very last time and there's something like a smile on his face when he remembers it. She bought him a book bound in leather. This is where he keeps track of his life.

She is followed by Bond and by this point, Q decides to stop thinking.

\--

In between the weeks of hard work and amusement at the expense of several disgruntled workers, he has manufactured the organization six unique weapons, each for a leader in the industry. Lucy doesn't get one, but she is unconcerned. She comes by the warehouse once in a while and looks more weary each time she does. She isn't sleeping. Q doesn't care.

“Last check-up?” she asks. Her lips are pursed and anyone else wouldn't catch the way her eyes are slightly narrowed in what might be concern but that he understands immediately to be irritation. Q nods and bends back down to hover over his blueprints.

“They weren't planning to let you live,” Lucy says. Her voice isn't low, but she speaks with casualty so that the words are lost to anyone else. Q doesn't stiffen. He's not incompetent, nor is he a fool – he knew the risks involved.

“Thing is,” she continues and ah, the lovely tremble to her voice, how it gives away her fearsome anger - “Now I'm to join you in being taken out back and shot like an animal.”

“Really?” Q hums. She joins him over the desk, as if looking over the design. Like this, they can whisper. “I think I prefer living. I know you, so don't pretend that you never saw this coming. I assume these are, in fact, coded to respond only to us?”

His lips twitch. “My routine is getting predictable, isn't it?”

“I've known you for a long time,” she sighs, but it comes out sounding more like a chuckle.

Eventually, they find a way out of there. Lucy takes a hit to the shoulder and one that grazes her calf. It's a violent business, but they come out on top. Q has a million pains running through him, from the bruises on his cheek to the ache in his thigh where a bullet went straight through. The money is already in his account and his flat is in no danger of being found; it's listed under Mabel Hutchinson and the old lady resides there whenever he needs her to.

Their victory is worth a celebration and it's the best downtime he's had in years.

\--

He's not reckless, despite the indication his arrogance sometimes brings to mind. Situations he can't control nor predict are situations he tends to avoid as best as he can. Q knows the people he works with or for and with them, he has the upper hand because he's needed. As an invaluable asset, he's still often regarded as detestable and he doesn't resent it. He's well aware of that while his workmanship is needed, his attitude is not.

He has monitored Bond's email for months. There is something about a delivery, one that will have to be made by the post-office rather than an official from MI6 and this is an opportunity that Q seizes without considering the danger.

The man delivering the envelope looks better suited for wrestling than this menial job. Q intercepts him on the corner of Bond's building and hands him twice his monthly salary to deliver it himself. The man walks away with no questions asked. Something queasy churns in Q's stomach.

His jeans are wet at the bottom and the heel of his shoes have allowed water through. It's a bother, but he remains uncaring. He has other things to fret about.

Six flights of stairs and the lift is out of commission. He feels something akin to gratitude and relief that he's granted more time to clear his head and put himself together as he takes the stairs two at a time. Bond's door, third one down the hall, is decorated with a dull, golden 13C in a horrid font. For all his seemingly excellent taste in suits, his building is surprisingly dingy and badly-lit. Maybe the location is, in fact, a stroke of genius – who would suspect a MI6 agent of residing here? Certainly not Q.

The doorbell is situated two inches from the door itself and slightly lower than the peep-hole. Q presses it firmly for three seconds. The door opens after nine. He's grateful that his cap allows him to cast his face into the shadows.

Bond is in blue jeans and a t-shirt.

Q presents the envelope with a practiced boredom that is rapidly dwindling down to clumsy embarrassment. “I have a delivery for James Bond,” he recites. It feels as if he might be blushing, but that's too ridiculous a notion to even think about.

“I wasn't aware that they got rid of the child labour laws.”

Not a lot of people can make Q hate himself, but Bond has joined the ranks. If he might have been blushing from embarrassment before, now he blushes out of an indignant anger.

“Sign here,” he says and thrusts the envelope at Bond. How he ever thought this was a good idea-

“Do you have a pen?” Bond asks, and now he's amused, smiling like he can tell that Q wants to stab his eyes out before ripping his own hair out in frustration. And no, Q doesn't. That was, sadly, the only part of this plan that he is still in control of.

“I must have lost it when I was biking,” he says. Bond gestures him inside, or maybe the flail of his hand indicates that Q should stay put. He follows the man when he walks to the kitchen, nevertheless.

He's seen it enough times that he almost avoids the bin situated just right for bumping your shin on. He deliberately trips over it.

Bond makes a sound caught between amusement and exasperation. Q nearly throws a tantrum at the easy condescension he can detect, but there is no need to give the man any more ammunition. “Sign here,” he shows the dotted line that's so obvious he might as well drop the charade. “And there,” he gestures at the square in the bottom right corner. “And then the same thing on your copy of the receipt.”

Bond nods and rummages in a drawer for, Q assumes, a pen. The curtains are drawn and let in only a sliver of afternoon light that plays over the contours of Bond's upper body. Q averts his eyes, stroking his fingers along the wooden counter top instead. He's dripping water everywhere and Bond doesn't say a word about it.

“Your laces are untied,” Bond says. Q glances down, and finds the statement to be true. He bends down without ceremony and puts his fingers to wet fabric and swiftly, something cold presses against the back of his head.

The muzzle of a gun. Q would know that feeling anywhere.

He puts up no protest, no incredulous and panicked questions about what Bond is doing and that is perhaps what truly gives him away. “I specifically arranged for a man named Errol to deliver this envelope – which, as you're surely realizing, was a ruse. He sent me a message when you paid him off.”

Q weighs his options; he can play the confused teenager that is simply in too much shock to react adequately, or he can admit to – what? Invasion of privacy through monitoring of a man's daily life?

“Well,” he sighs, tilting the back of his head slightly back into the muzzle – Bond chuckles - “I suppose I judged him rather shallowly. More capable of subterfuge than I'd have imagined.” He shifts in his crouch and makes to stand. Bond allows it. “Why go through all this trouble, though?”

“You've been watching me for quite a while now. I thought it was about time we met.” It sounds so simple when Bond puts it like that. Q straightens entirely and now he allows the slouch of his shoulders to evaporate, the slight bend in his legs to erase itself. Himself, whole again, standing upright and proud. “Please, sit.”

Q deliberately waits a second or so before he takes a seat at the counter, if only to humour Bond with his decision this time. He's tempted to grab the gun off him – he most certainly can – but his heart is beating fast and panicked and he has to fight not to let his hands twitch, like they are prone to do when faced with something like this. He folds his hands across the wood before rethinking, pulling his cap off and leveling Bond with a look he hopes appears more confident than anxious. It's not because of the gun; he spends enough time around those to consider them allies, not enemies. But Bond is calm and that unnerves him. The amount of control is astounding.

“You know, asking me out for coffee would have sufficed.”

Oh.

“What makes you think that's why-”

“In the bathroom? Really? What intelligence could possibly be gathered from my showers?”

If Q didn't know better, he'd swear that was a grin playing at the corners of Bond's mouth.

Haughty, he gives a snort. Cocks an eyebrow in the silent question of _why would I want to watch you?_

“Well,” Bond continues, and he's still holding the gun casually, as if Q is not a real threat but some silly, love-struck fool that has nothing better to do than watch an old, wretched man run his empty little life from his empty little apartment.

Resentment rises, furious and quick. A snarl contorts his face into something bitter and angry and Bond looks as if caught between surprise and bafflement. He lunges across the counter before he can think, hands going for the places he know will feel the impact afterwards. His fingers close hard and practiced around Bond's throat, enough of a shock that he can grab the gun without much of a hassle. He snarls, half an inch from Bond's stunned face, before he slowly pulls away.

“Well,” he mirrors when he's a safe distance away, steadfastly refusing to identify the look on Bond's face. “We're finished here. I'll be going.”

He has no witty parting words. He drops the gun down a sewer drain. It's not his preferred model.

\--

Humiliation builds until he feels ready to claw out of his own skin.

There is no outlet for the rage. His heart is pounding, still. He has nowhere to release it.

Bond. An ugly, broken excuse for a man. Q's stomach churns violently and he nearly tears his clothes off as he makes to go shower. If he drowns beneath the spray, he'll have no complaints.

It is only when he is beneath the hot spray and reaching for the soap that he realizes his hands are shaking. Not light trembles like the ones he gets from overuse of a gun or pen, no; violent shakes that make dropping the soap inevitable.

He leans his forehead against the wall. Bond. Idiotic, maddening, infuriating Bond.

A shudder rips through him. He's harder than he can recall ever being. His legs tremble, breath shallow.

His lips part on a choked, furious sound when he reaches down to fist his cock. Blinding, intense anger wells up within, and he can't stop the frenzied thrusts into his own hand that leave him panting and clawing at the tiled wall with his other fist.

There's blood beneath his fingernails when he comes.

\--

“It's not that bad.”

“I would genuinely have preferred death.”

“You're not a teenager anymore,” Lucy says. “I thought you were over this self-pity.”

“You wouldn't know the first thing about it.”

“Alright, that's quite enough,” Lucy sighs. “You've been here for hours and you're getting repetitive. Unless you're going to stop being dramatic and help me toss this ball back and forth, get out.”

“You,” Q enunciates, "Are not a nice person." He doesn't complain – doesn't sulk, certainly. Lucy tucks her legs beneath her body and tosses him the soft ball she uses for physical therapy and he tosses it back with ease. “I'm pathetic.”

Lucy tosses the ball back silently. “You're supposed to say I'm not. What kind of friend are you?”

“The kind that doesn't lie,” she chirps and he tosses the ball a bit too low. She graces him with a mild glare. “You might as well stop whining. You stalked the man. That's not the most straight-forward way to ask someone out. Now that he's removed the cameras, that's all over, anyway.”

Q stares. The ball lands by his feet.

Lucy sighs again. “He didn't?”

There's a perverse thrill of pleasure shooting up his spine at the realization that he still has access, that Bond might enjoy this little game of theirs.

Maybe the quip about coffee was less of an insult and more of an invitation. A slow smile quirks his lips up.

“I'm a stupid man.”

“Stupid,” Lucy agrees, "Not to mention your dramatic flair for playing the victim."

Q arches an eyebrow. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Between the two of us," Lucy shrugs, "You always acted as if I was the only one ruining things. I wonder if you'll ever wake up and see that you were just as bad as I was.”

Cold, stunned fury – but this time, it doesn't feel quite so justified.

He leaves ten minutes later. Neither of them says goodbye.

\--

Breaking into Bond's apartment a week after the revelation of the cameras remaining was, in retrospect, somewhat of a flawed idea.

He has been waiting in the dark for hours. Finally, there is the sound of a key in the lock and fast-paced footsteps nearing him. Bond has his gun out, no doubt, ready to shoot him if he were to mistake him for a threat.

“I want to take you out for coffee,” Q says, as if he's not perched on Bond's sofa in the middle of the night while the other man is pointing a gun at him.

“This wasn't exactly what I expected when I said asking me out would suffice,” Bond says and proceeds to put the gun down with no hesitation. Stupid move, Q reflects; what if he were to grab it?

“Pardon me for sacrificing hours of my life for the sake of catching you in,” Q says flippantly. His heart is racing.

“You broke into my apartment,” Bond enunciates slowly, “To ask me out on a date, after these countless months of watching me sleep and eat and shower and piss?”

“Well, yes,” Q says, as if there's nothing strange about that.

“You're buying,” Bond says.

\--

It's Wednesday afternoon that introduces Q to the fact that Bond takes his coffee black and preferable with a croissant. They have both been nursing their drinks for three minutes, silence reigning over their table in the corner. Q sips his coffee, glad that it hides the smile that threatens to give him away.

Bond has been asking him questions. Q has been vague and infuriating with his answers.

“Do you play the piano?” Bond asks, grasping for straws, searching for any insight that Q might deign to give him.

Q arches an eyebrow. Music plays loud and obnoxious from a radio by the counter. “I mostly play PlayStation.”

“What books do you read, then?”

“I prefer art.”

Bond shoots him a look that is both annoyed and appreciative at once. “Do you like cats?” he follows up with. “Birds,” Q replies. Bond asks about his memory and Q says that he can memorize poetry, but is lost when it comes to the recipe for something as simple as pancake batter.

“What do you think about guns?” Bond asks, and Q is getting tired of this relentless onslaught of questions, but he promised earlier that he'd answer. “Crude,” he says, measuring his words carefully. “But thrilling.”

“Fears? Heights, the ocean?”

Q says “I'm not overly fond of mountains,” and Bond leaves it at that.

Later, when dusk is settling in, Q walks Bond back to his flat. Something is making the air between them heavy and he can hardly brush against Bond without a sharp, searing want making itself known in the twist of his gut and flutter of his pulse.

The walk is long and neither of them speaks. Their arms brush together, but the things they ought to be saying are perfectly conveyed through the way Bond glances at him, the way Q is offering similar looks back.

The lift has been fixed. There's a second where Q considers the stairs, but then Bond has pushed him inside and he goes along obediently.

Six floors. It feels like eternity.

Bond is looking at him with a certain depth, a certain hunger. He's breathing heavily, the brush of his fingers against Q's like a rush of electricity that takes over his whole body and then Bond shoves Q against the wall and flattens himself along his front by the third floor, kissing him like it's the only thing he has ever wanted to do.

His head is swimming by the time the lift stops and lets out a sharp ding, but Bond is on him the entire way to the door. Q can scarcely catch his breath – doesn't want to – because here, like this, he can't imagine anything else feeling quite this good.

Blue eyes flash at him, like lightning. Bond tugs him inside by his cardigan and presses him to the wall. His fingers are warm where they delve up beneath the soft fabric of the wool, heat blazing through the added layer of his shirt. Q - 

He comes undone.

“Well,” he breathes, and they're stumbling blindly through the flat and overturning the table in the hallway and Bond is laughing as he bites at Q's throat and then hisses when Q fists fingers in his short hair and tugs, muttering “Feisty,” with an air of breathless appreciation.

Making it to the bedroom is a battle – they trip and stumble and Bond keeps him pressed up against a wall for a good five minutes while he shoves his layers of wool and cotton up enough to mouth along his stomach.

A trembling, guttural moan rises out of Q when Bond hovers close, gets back up from his perch on his knees and breathes damp and heavy into his neck. Q gets one leg wrapped around Bond and they stumble their way into the bedroom, cursing for more than one reason. Q fists the back of Bond's shirt and feels him groan when they grind together, heat rushing through him like a tidal wave.

There is a brief sensation of falling and then he is on his back on the bed and Bond is trying to pull down his pants while simultaneously fumbling to push Q's cardigan up. “Stop,” Q groans and tugs him closer, hissing at the pressure against his cock, smothering obscenities into Bond's skin.

Q chokes out “It's your fault,” and Bond thrusts against him with a murmured “Of course it is, darling,” and then there's no more need for words.

\--

“You're paying for dry-cleaning,” Bond mutters. His foot is cold where it presses into Q's ribs.

“I am not paying to clean a mess that is only half mine,” Q yawns. His head thuds against the floor when he shifts; he's half hanging off the bed, half on it. There's sunlight blinding him, so he closes his eyes. Bond huffs a warm, stale breath against his outstretched arm.

“And what a spectacular mess it is,” he comments. Q hums his agreement.

The bedroom looks as if a hurricane has swept through it. Clothes lie in disarray on the floor, Bond's books are spread out – some are missing pages – and the curtains are torn.

Q yawns again. He scratches his stomach lazily. “I'm in the mood for waffles.”

Bond rolls to his stomach and props himself up on his elbows. He looks exhausted; his hair is tousled, his skin welted red where Q sunk his teeth in, lips a messy red.

He has never looked quite this delicious. “Waffles it is,” Bond agrees.

\--

Later, when Q is dutifully removing the cameras (upon Bond's insistence), his hand stops at the last one - the one in the bedroom - and perhaps he knows why he left this one for last.

He leaves it.

**Author's Note:**

> i decided to write q as, shockingly, a character with more sides than the odd fluffy little kitten side that some authors in this fandom have him pegged as. he's damaged, calculating, and menacing. i hope anyone reading this felt it stayed faithful to his character despite the au elements.
> 
> edited 03.03.2016


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